


before the wounds become scars

by cicak



Series: Lesbian Han Solo [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Backstory, Chewbacca is everyone's surrogate dad, F/F, Female Han Solo - Freeform, Genderswap, Lesbian Han Solo, Lesbian Lando Calrissian, Misunderstandings, Return of the Jedi, Rule 63, So much angst, Space Lesbians in Love, War is hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:00:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6636556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cicak/pseuds/cicak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Han Solo rejoins the land of the living, the first thing she hears is Leia’s voice saying she loves her, and then feels her lips on hers, and she thinks that she must give Chewie those credits she owes him, because obviously heaven is real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before the wounds become scars

When Han Solo rejoins the land of the living, the first thing she hears is Leia’s voice saying she loves her, and then feels her lips on hers, and she thinks that she must give Chewie those credits she owes him, because obviously heaven is real.

She is struck instantly by how weak she is, her knees buckling, falling down into Leia’s arms, her delicate frame somehow stronger than she remembers her being. Her face feels like it doesn’t belong to her anymore and when she tries to open her eyes she thinks that her eyelids must not be listening to her, because she can’t seem to see. 

Her fingers are swollen like she’s spent a day in the bath, but they at least still work, and then she’s touching not delicate thin skin, but no, that’s an eye, her eyes are open.

She’s blind, and she’s confused, and so she panics, but then there’s Leia’s voice, quiet and deep, saying this is normal, that they’re so close to escaping, just to hold it together for a minute - and then she gasps, and there’s laughter, cruel, nasty laughter, and then Jabba the Hutt speaks and okay, Chewie owes her credits, because this is hell.

They wrench Leia from her, and Han think she’s going to die now, out of the carbonite and into the fire, back into nothingness forever, but instead they throw her into the dungeons, cold and echoing, and the gods need to make their mind up about how they’re playing with Han Solo’s life, but then Chewie wraps her in a hug so big it all seems like it’ll be okay.

Han sleeps, exhausted and Carbonite-sick and the whole thing feels like a bad dream, but when she wakes Chewie is still there, petting idly at her hair and cooing wookiee lullabies to her. 

He checks her carefully, his hands soft even if his fur tickles against her oversensitised skin.

“I have missed you, pup” he moans, when he’s done. “Your friends are almost dangerously incompetent. Your ex girlfriend is the best of the lot, but that says nothing.”

“Is there at least a plan?” Han asks. 

Chewie grumbles a bit, and then admits that Luke has a plan, but it’s _terrible_.

“He’s strange now. A real jedi. Not like the kid we met. More like the old man.”

It takes Han a while to realise why her anxiety spikes during this conversation, but then she sits up so fast her head spins, whipping round suddenly to look at Chewie. “Wait, Luke’s alive?! Vader didn’t get him?”

Chewie chuckles. “You’re slow, pup. Got his hand, but the droids fixed him up. He was a mess, but he’s got strong. Got his own ship, disappears off places sometimes, but he gets stronger all the time. A real mystical piece of shit these days. You’ll like him. Both those kids have grown up fast.”

He’s talking about Leia, and so Han lies back against Chewie’s solid warmth, tired again, relieved. “You’d tell me if there was anything I needed to know?” she hedges. “About Leia?”

Han’s coy, but Chewie is old fashioned, an old man, due grand-pups any day now. He doesn’t like his babies talking about sex, but she wants to, has to know.

Chewie snorts, “She’s the worst of the lot of them. She reminds me far too much of you.”

Han is told later about what happened in detail, about Leia being taken as Jabba’s slave, about her killing him, strangling him to death with her own choke-chain, while Luke calmly killed everyone and everyone else tried to make sure Han didn’t fall into the Sarlacc pit or shoot herself with a stolen blaster. They make it off Tatooine and back to the Falcon, and its symbolic, but his ship is the first thing she manages to truly see properly, and it makes her feel a thousand times better.

Han’s eyesight returns over the course of the next two days, during which she and Leia have a lot of sex and don’t talk much, putting their mouths to much better use. It’s angry, and desperate, the kind of sex that is better than talking, but Han still needs to sleep a lot, and Leia has mysterious things to do, not to mention Threepio tells her he is ecstatic to see her again, and that the ship has missed her.

The cockpit is crowded these days, Landeau and Chewie at the controls, with Leia watching behind them, and Threepio babbling on to the ship or to whoever will listen to him, and so in the back, Han looks around her ship, sighs, and starts tidying up.

She fills a bag quickly with miscellaneous detritus that she’d trained herself to always toss when she lived here, ration pack wrappers and twists of paper, but when she goes to dispose of it there’s an error light on indicating that the previous garbage vent was incomplete. When she puts her hand down into the chute, she finds a twisted mess of gold metal and dirty purple silk clogging up the trash compactor, and finally puts two and two together, the way Leia is covered neck to ankle these days, with clothes and sheets, the way she is hesitant to have her hips touched, hates Han’s weight on her, and Han feels a twist in her guts like a knife.

The war will be written on the cliffs and on their bones, but the real damage is in their minds. 

They’re off to rendezvous with the fleet, and it can’t come soon enough. The ship is just the right size for two, with cargo of course, but there’s five humanoids in here now, and while Threepio doesn’t need a bed, he still takes up space, and after two full days of hyperspace travel, they’re all well worn and fraying in each other’s company.

Han manages to get a seat in her cockpit in time for arrival, mostly through bitterly complaining about it for a few hours until Landeau throws her hands up and declares that it’s not like hyperspace requires hands on flight, and Han grins, plops herself in the captain’s chair, and then immediately realises she needs the fresher.

She rounds the corner and catches them, sees what she had bitterly, nastily suspected once she realises that it hasn’t been a few weeks since she was frozen, its been over a year. Leia and Landeau standing too close, talking intensely for a moment, and then Leia standing on her toes to kiss Landeau’s cheek, her lips lingering. Han steps back, quickly, and it’s obvious they didn’t hear her, the Falcon is noisier than she’s ever been under Han’s command. 

* * *

Landeau Calrissian met Han Solo over a card game neither of them could ever win, when Han was newly exiled from her home, before the wounds of that incident had become scars, when everything still hurt bright like the sun. There was this girl at the table, posh looking, rich, with gorgeous tightly curled hair that glistened like the style was back then, and Han thought that she could probably hustle her in one way or another, take her time, maybe make an evening of it. 

During the next two hours, Landeau took Han for everything she had, and then lost both of their collective wealth to the mob boss who was actually fixing the game, and by the time the clock ticked over to the next day, they were both running away on Landeau’s ship, with nothing but the clothes on their back and the adrenaline in their blood.

“Where do you want me?” Han asks, when she ducks into the small cockpit.

Landeau is already seated, concentrating hard, doing acrobatics across the cockpit to get the ship ready for lightspeed. She points at the copilot’s chair. “Just...sit down and shut up. Try and be helpful if you can, but if you can’t just be quiet. This ship is a handful, I need to concentrate.”

The ship has this horrendous rattle that Landeau seemed to not have noticed as she lurches around the cockpit, her limbs only just long enough to reach the necessary controls, so Han did what she was told and tries to be helpful, and so reaches up and flicks a switch, casual as can be. The shuddering, the horrible, bolt loosening hull shiver that would have torn the ship apart eventually, stops abruptly.

Han realises that Landeau is staring at her like she’d just grown a second head. “What did you do? I haven’t been able to get rid of that rattle since I got her! This ship is incomprehensible! She doesn’t follow any standard shipbuilding logic. I can barely keep her upright half the time. I was hoping to trade her on that rock but no one would take her.”

“Yeah well,” Han said, stretching her legs out and playing with her hair, the picture of insouciance. “It may not follow standard logic, but it does follow Corellian logic. And I’m Corellian myself, you see, and people say the same kind of things about me, so I think me and your girl understand each other. We just need to be treated right and _listened to_ , now and again.”

Landeau smiles. “Oh great, I so got two uncontrollable pieces of space trash to look after? Just my luck.”

Han leans closer, puts every piece of yearning for her homeworld into it, every little scrap of desperation and seduction she can summon. “The other thing you gotta know about Corellians? We’re a _handful_. Four handfuls, to be precise.” 

Their lips are very close. Out of the corner of her eye, Han can see the galaxy stretch before her. Without the rattle, the cockpit is silent as space, save for the hush of Landeau’s quick, excited breathing. “You’re gonna need a copilot, flygirl. And I think you might have just found one.”

The two years Han was Landeau’s copilot were some of the happiest and yet most infuriating of her entire life. Living in such cramped quarters weren’t so bad, it was much less crowded than back home, sharing one room with her four sisters, and she at least liked Landeau most of the time. They never really fought, mostly because whenever they were angry at each other they made a pact to fuck it out for the good of ship morale.

When Han was a girl, a cousin, a gross boy she never saw very often, played her a dirty holo to try and shock her. It was a nasty scene, a close up of genitals on degraded film, with horrible, panting voice overs that didn’t match the movement of the lips, the girl wide eyed and closed mouthed, the guy above her snapping his hips like the machines in the shipyard.

“That’ll be you someday, Hannie” he mocked, jabbing one grimy finger at the screen.

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t have a _dick_ , bantha-brain” she mocked back.

This was obviously the funniest thing ever. “Ew, Hannie, no, you’re the girl, what, you wanna fuck a girl? You’re the one who’s gonna get _fucked_ , don’t forget that.”

Han looked at the screen again, looked at the girl for a long moment, and burst into tears and ran from the room.

Sex with Landeau though, was nothing like that. It lasted for hours, for one thing. There was no quick rut, no uncomfortable positions, and orgasms didn’t herald the end of anything. They didn’t stop until they were gasping for water, limbs shaking, exhausted to the point of collapsing in each other’s arms. Landeau taught her more about her body than her school sexuality classes had, and also about how her own body was different. Landeau could roll from one orgasm to another seemingly forever, like the waves of the beach, but Han shivered and shuddered for hours with a low level hum of pleasure until her head would snap back with the ferocity of her orgasm, and then go back to the slow build up, start it all again. 

They robbed and grifted, and Han made upgrades to the Falcon, took out nearly all the creature comforts to allow them to carry more freight. They ate whatever rations they could buy cheaply in bulk as the galley was the first thing to go, and had adventures, enough adventures for a thousand episodes of a holo opera. 

Han was still moody, and they were often more hungry than not. The Falcon wasn’t the easiest ship to fly, and their pact not to fight meant that they let their simmering resentment build for months before it exploded into marathon sex, more like a fight than a fuck, and always with teeth. 

They ended when they decided to have a run at the Daystar Casino. They entered separately, of course, and it was fun. So much fun, they were there for weeks, competing in the Sabacc tournament and then drinking with their new buddies, and seducing each other at the bar like they were strangers with nothing to lose. It was like a holiday, and they were both good at it.

Corellian spike had recently developed a lot of respectability in this part of the galaxy among the sabacc professionals, and so Han had something of a home team advantage, but she had taught Landeau herself how to flick the dice, the secret combinations that most players ignored in favour of the bigger gambles, and every night Han would send a message to Landeau asking if she was still in, and Landeau would always reply that yes, she was, see her tomorrow.

Still, despite this, it never occurred to Han that she might face Landeau in the final. 

The final was glossy and exciting to start with. There were crowds all around the table, as if they were celebrities, and huge sums of money were exchanging hands over which of them would win. If Han was there on the outside she would be making a killing, betting on Landeau and lifting wallets and command keys left and right.

They’re both doing well, but Han knows that as she tires she’ll make mistakes, so she wants this over as quickly as possible. She is sick and tired of this one-note casino, the endless fried food, her low grade eternal hangover she just wants to sleep off. She misses talking to Landeau, misses their ship, misses even the hollow pang of hunger sometimes, as she shifts in her slightly too small trousers in the high backed, plush chair.

Then, she gets a good hand. The fool is high, and she has five of them. The dealer spins, and then she has seven. She takes a deep breath, and rolls the dice. They glint in the strong light, and come up pretty good. Not textbook perfect, but it’s a hand that would be very hard to beat.

Han knows she has a thousand tells, but Landeau is worse, and part of what made this gruelling was watching Landeau try not to give everything away, and calculating which tells were ones she could control, and which were true. Landeau is equally tired and irritated, but she’s smiling like she has Han, like there’s no way she can’t win. She calls, and then pauses. She then took the command keys for the Falcon out of her bra, holding Han’s gaze the whole time, and throws them down into the chaotic spill of the pot.

The dealer commands them to reveal their hands, and Han can’t bear to look at Landeau’s face when she sees that her six fools are trumped by Han’s seven, and that Han has won everything she has. 

She doesn’t look up as Landeau pushes her chair out, bows, gets her cape, and leaves.

Han gets drunk, lets the people around her buy her drinks and feel her up a little, and when she gets back to the Falcon, Landeau’s stuff has gone. Han waits a whole day, but she doesn’t come back, and so she leaves, her gold dice strung up by the captain’s seat as a reminder of all this cost her. 

It all goes to shit nearly straight away. She’s robbed of her winnings by the first guy she picks up to be her copilot, and ends up toiling in a spice mine with a bunch of wookiee slaves. The spice dust is hazy and makes her sick, but it’s not all bad. She meets Chewbacca, who teaches her the wookiee language, and then helps her steal her ship back from the overseers. He can fly pretty well, so she brings him with her when she finally finds a way to escape.

She doesn’t see Landeau for three years, and then when they bump into each other, it’s almost like the good times again, until Landeau offers her a line of spice, and Han snaps out of her nostalgic reverie almost immediately. She won’t have anything to do with that shit ever again if she can possibly help it.

She doesn’t see her again after that until Bespin, and by then, everything had changed.

* * *

They reach the rest of the rebel fleet, and whaddaya know, the Empire has built another Death Star, and Han’s feeling desperate and disjointed. How could they have built another one so fast? Then she remembers all the months she’s missing, all the secrets people are keeping from her. It’s not helped by Leia having been absorbed into the command structure almost immediately, the place full of her father’s old friends and her own senate buddies, and so Han wanders around with Chewie, avoiding Landeau as much as possible, chatting to Luke once he gets back. Chewie’s right, he is a lot like the old man Kenobi now, it’s uncanny. There’s this stillness and an ancientness to him, like he’s been carved out of the stone at the heart of a planet. His dress sense has improved, at least, and he no longer looks at her like he’s going through puberty and has never seen a girl before, so Han chalks the bad plans and weird philosophy up as a win.

They’re asking for volunteers, and Han is among the first, partly so she has something to do, and is surprised when they give her a commission and start calling her General Solo, like she’s somebody, not just jumped up Corellia gutter-trash. 

Leia calls it a suicide mission, but comes along anyway, and Han thinks she’ll never actually understand women, even as one.

They don’t die, but is close this time. Leia falls off a speeder, and Han has a good few minutes where she thinks she is dead, but it turns out she isn’t. Instead, Leia probably gets ticks off the cuddly small bear she befriends because she is after all, a literal fairytale princess, and so of course woodland creatures will flock to her. Han nearly ends up as dinner, but it’s okay, Threepio is a god now, so it ends up being alright. It all borders on farce, and Han is still bitter and angry at everyone, grumbling along to Chewie under her breath. Then there’s an ambush, they’re outmanned, it all looks like it’s the end.

And then Leia gets shot.

They’re pinned down, defending a bunker in what feels like a trap with every passing minute and then there’s a bolt and Leia screams and Han’s heart stops. They are pinned down, there’s blood everywhere, and Han isn’t ready for this to be the end, not again, is holding her to stop the bleeding, and then the little bears explode out of the woods, and it’s all over for them, in the good way.

* * *

If you had told Han Solo that small cuddly carnivorous bears knew how to party, she would have scoffed at you, but the music is good and there’s a rumour Luke is back, oh, and the war is over. The sky is full of streaks of light as the death star disintegrates in the upper atmosphere and there’s talk about climbing the mountain to watch it. There’s a lot of babies being made tonight, and Han’s feeling good for the first time since forever.

Han wants to spend it with her girl, but she can’t find her. She can’t speak enough Ewok to stop them hugging her, so ‘where’s the small princess with the hair and the great rack’ is beyond her grasp. She wanders around the rooms, and yeah, so much rutting, she could be rutting right now, could be between Leia’s thighs, begging for forgiveness, and then she pokes her head out of one room and there Leia is, with Luke, having a conversation in low, whimsical voices. 

Han isn’t going to get jealous, she _isn’t_ , this is Luke, and so lurks around until she hears footsteps, and lets herself out onto the walkway.

“Hey Princess” she says, smiling, but when Leia turns around she is crying. 

“What happened?” she asks. 

“Nothing, god, just, it’s a lot to take in, is all.” Leia says, less cryptic and more just confused.

“What is?” Han asks, gently.

But Leia is crying again, and so Han wraps her in her arms, and wills her to stop, to talk, for there not to be any drama tonight.

Leia manages to talk after a few minutes, hiccuping words between tears. “It’s just, we have this connection, he and I, and I just can’t understand it, but I can’t deny it. I love him so much, and now to know, just, oh, Han, I -” she goes to snuggle back into Han’s embrace, but Han isn’t there anymore. She feels cold and numb, absolutely gutted, like her intestines are on the floor and she is physically dying. 

She manages to choke out some words, half chivalrous and half bitterly angry, and runs.

The party’s still going hard when Han stomps back over the wood bridge into the main Ewok compound. Most of the little bears are up well past their bedtime, and so it’s not just the humanoids keeping it going. Han is desperate to get as drunk as she can, determined to make some bad decisions, give herself something else to focus on than Leia and _Luke,_ so grabs a pint of the weird paintstripper alcohol the Ewoks distill out of their trees, throws a token splash of juice in it, and looks for the hottest woman in the room to ruin her life with.

She settles on the tall redhead in a white dress that reminds Han a lot of the one Leia wore when they met, and settles herself in her line of sight, nursing her drink and staring intently at her. She seems to notice Han right away, sneaks glances, and the familiarity of the performance creeps into her bones. If she can do anything, she can do _this_. She has been fucking up since she was sixteen. 

Nothing comes of it, and when Han goes to refill her drink, she finds the lady in white has disappeared. When she looks around, there’s a voice at her elbow. “Who knew you were a famefucker, Solo? From Princess to the head of the rebellion, you’ve obviously got a thing for women who could order your execution.”

Landeau steps forward, she’s drinking something that smells of freshly turned earth out of a small, squat glass. She crooks an eyebrow. 

Han takes her glass from her long, beautiful fingers and drains it. “Get your cape” she says. “You’ve pulled.” 

Landeau furrows her brow. “What about Leia?”

Han takes her hand and pulls her in close. “Do you want to fuck me or what?” she snarls.

Landeau gets her cape, and follows her into the trees.

Kissing is good, it's fine, but there’s this itch under Han’s skin that distracts her. Landeau feels different to all those years ago, but her hands are still big and confident, can still take her apart quick as anything. Han’s face is not wet, definitely not, but she can’t help the hurt that burbles out of her mouth like its a pressure valve for her stupid emotions, “tell me about her, tell me how you fucked her, tell me everything, make it hurt, I need it to _hurt_ ”

Landeau pulls back. “Okay, you have to calm down, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Oh you are so _full of shit_ Landeau,” Han screams impotently, “You sold us out to the empire! And then you fucked my girl, stole my ship, just, fuck you so much, why did I do this, why did I do any of this.”

Instead of recoiling into rage like Han expected (wanted), Landeau just looked stunned. Her pretty mouth gaped open like Han had gutted her.

“I’ve never...are you insane? Did the carbonite process _scramble your fucking brains_? Fuck you, Han Solo, I gave you an out! Since when do you not rise to taunting? I thought, hey look she’s finally grown up, just at the exact wrong point, because time was I’d call you a swindler, hell, time was I would look at you wrong and you’d go off and punch the walls and break your ship trying hard to find something to fix, and suddenly you turn up on the arms of a princess and can now hold your temper? I was happy for you, but fuck your timing.”

She’s mad now, broken through her shock and into that pool of pure rage that sits cold and eternal inside her. “Also I never fucking touched her, and you know why? She never asked me to. She’s hot as hell but she doesn’t want me, she wants you, for some fucking reason.”

 

Han is shocked, recoiling like she’s been slapped. 

She manages to grind out some words, shame strangling her so it was really nothing more than a mumble of someone who knows she is wrong, “Yeah well, you did steal my ship.”

Landeau shrugs. “I flew her around for a bit. Chewie needed a copilot, and I swore to someone important to me I would look after her girlfriend.”

She gets serious. “She loves you, Han. Don’t ruin this, not the way you ruined us”, she gestures at the chasm between them. “I know what it’s like to love you, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. She would be better off with me, of course she would, but that’s not the way love works. For either of us. Go to her, apologise, be a better person. The war is over, so many people are dead, you can become someone else, reinvent yourself. Try. For me. Try and be happy for one time in your stupid life.”

Han’s mind is reeling, and she’s suddenly so drunk, but she has to go find Leia, and so she stumbles through the brush without saying goodbye, Landeau shouting after her something that at least sounds positive, and she tears through the village on wobbly legs, mumbling, a drunken mess but at least an upright one, until she finds Leia sitting alone, almost exactly where she left her.

“I’m sorry” Han says. “I love you. I’m a jealous idiot, but I love you, and I want you to know that. There’s no one else. I can’t stand there being anyone else. I know this is real. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone else.”

Leia looks kind, though red eyed. “I know” she says, and opens her arms.

Han goes, and they hug, tight and bone-deep, and Leia says “Look, I need to tell you something”...

And Han listens.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who enjoyed the first part of this - I was bowled over by how much people loved Lesbian Han Solo!   
> I have more planned, because I just can't get enough of them.   
> Come hang out with me on tumblr where I try and make everything about lesbian Han Solo these days, at [cicaklah.tumblr.com](http://cicaklah.tumblr.com)


End file.
